A Theory of Auditability for Allocation Mechanisms

Abstract

In centralized mechanisms and platforms, participants do not fully observe each others' type reports. Hence, if there is a deviation from the promised mechanism, participants may be unable to detect it. We formalize a notion of auditabilty that captures how easy or hard it is to detect deviations from a mechanism. We find a stark contrast between the auditabilities of prominent mechanisms. We also provide tight characterizations of maximally auditable classes of allocation mechanisms.